The Texan city of El Paso is experiencing elevated numbers of illegal migrant crossings at its border at a time when statewide officials are attempting to take the law into their own hands.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and others have expressed vehement disagreement with Judge David Ezra for siding with multiple civil rights groups—as well as the city of El Paso and the Department of Justice—and preventing Senate Bill 4 from coming into effect on March 5. Abbott has vowed to appeal the ruling, which could potentially bring the U.S. Supreme Court into the fold.
The civil rights groups sued Abbott and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw for attempting to enact their own deportation laws that would have permitted local and state law enforcement to arrest, detain and remove individuals suspected of entering the state illegally from other countries. The decision came on the same day that President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were both in Texas to address national concerns regarding illegal migrants entering the country.
Daily migrant encounters with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in El Paso are averaging about 1,129 per day, with 2,624 currently in custody. In total, there have been 25,723 migrants chartered and 10,516 received by CBP since September 10.
A seven-day rolling average shows an uptick, increasing from about 572 encounters in the third week of 2024 to surpassing 700 encounters and already reaching 1,085 on Tuesday—rivaling numbers last seen about 10 days ago, according to the city's migrant dashboard.
Newsweek reached out to El Paso officials via email for comment.
"We have seen ... I will say, like, in the last two weeks, three weeks, small groups of migrants arriving to our Border Safety Initiative Number 36," El Paso Border Patrol Officer Claudio Herrera told local ABC affiliate KVIA.
"Those migrants are guided by misinformation through social media, saying that this is the place for them to cross into the country and request asylum. The reality is different. They're just crossing in between the ports of entry, and they're crossing illegally."
The El Paso Sector is one of nine situated along the southwest border separating the U.S. and Mexico. It includes 11 stations and covers the geographical region of the entire state of New Mexico, as well as two counties within far west Texas.
While "street releases" reached nearly 4,600 last week—an increase from about 2,166 in mid-January—Herrera said that encounters in the El Paso Sector "have significantly decreased" some 50 percent compared to the same time during the previous fiscal year.
The city says the "migrant crisis" has been a reality since 2018 but accelerated in April 2022, with the ongoing surge taking form in August of that year—increasing from approximately 250 per day to as high as 1,000-plus per day by September 2022.
Most migrants are coming from Venezuela, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba, with Venezuelans representing about 70 percent of all migrant encounters.
Iliana Holguin, El Paso County commissioner of Precinct 3, said Ezra's ruling on Senate Bill 4 (S.B. 4) represented a confirmation "that immigration policies rest solely under federal jurisdiction, and the state of Texas' interference with the U.S. Constitution will not be tolerated."
"A piecemeal approach from individual states on federal matters such as immigration enforcement would put an undue burden on local taxpayers, while opening the door to potential civil rights violations for border residents and immigrants alike," Holguin said in a statement shared with Newsweek.
El Paso County Attorney Jo Anne Bernal told Newsweek via email that the decision recognized the potential harm to local taxpayers, many of whom she argued would be unnecessarily burdened by such legislation.
"El Paso taxpayers will pay for the consequences of a bill that is unnecessary," Bernal said on Thursday. "It is the federal government's responsibility to enforce immigration law. The State of Texas should not lay that responsibility on the backs of local law enforcement or local governmental entities.
"It is a divisive and dangerous law, and we are very grateful that, at least for now, will not take effect."
Judge Ricardo Samaniego, of El Paso County, attended President Biden's event last Thursday at the Brownsville Border Patrol Station. He and other El Paso County judges and commissioners had previously sent a letter to Biden cautioning his administration on S.B. 4.
"The federal government should support border communities like El Paso County so we may continue providing services to newcomers in a safe and humane way without overwhelming our local social services and law enforcement," Samaniego said in remarks shared with Newsweek. "I'm hopeful that the president's visit to the border will be an important step in improving our immigration system while allowing us to remain a welcoming community to recent immigrants."
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Nick Mordowanec is a Newsweek reporter based in Michigan. His focus is reporting on Ukraine and Russia, along with social ... Read more
